Why Small Gaming Sites Matter

GoozerNation: There is no shortage of big gaming sites on the internet; from your Kotakus to your Destructoids, they all have high respectability, big advertisers, and talented writers. So why even bother with small-time sites like GoozerNation? Because these are the opinions and experiences that matter to the average gamer.

In his (excellent) review of Skyrim, Andrew Reiner listed some statistics he gathered in his 11 days spent with the game. Most notable to me were the 146 quests he completed and the over 105 hours he played. 105 hours in 11 days. In addition to being a truly herculean accomplishment, it's simply not analogous to the way a typical gamer will experience Skyrim. Getting sucked into a game for the equivalent of two weeks at a full-time job (plus overtime) will be a completely different experience than squeezing in a few hours of play time before bed.

[5yN4MWQU]

I wanted to leave a comment on your site because I enjoyed your writing, but I didn't want to have to register to do it. I'll leave it here instead.

Your writing is fantastic and your analysis is sound. I'd like to have seen a bit more to the article. You're marketing this post largely to other journalists who work with sites of about the same size as GoozerNation, so you should know that your audience is capable of reading and writing a bit more than normally.

That said, it was a great piece. I'd like to see more writing like this, despite that fact that it's (unfortunately) not quite sensational enough nor does it involve enough boobies for N4G to truly appreciate.

Side note: I see you're on Joomla. Consider setting your comments system to allow comments from guest users, just make sure you enable either reCaptcha or Akismet to block spam. It has greatly increased interactions among my userbase.

Edit.: What's the source of that image? I love it.

[Rowland]

well said.

[ginsunuva]

The article image? That's Goozex's mascot, the Goozilla or the Goozer, or maybe it's the Goozeosaurus or the Goozemaster - no it's probably the Goozeraptor. Mr Gooze?

[brockst4r]

Thanks for all the kind comments! I would have liked to add more, but it was kind of written quickly and on a whim. There will eventually be a part 2 :D I definitely have more reasons why smaller sites matter.

[WolfLeBlack]

As someone who runs a small site it's great to see articles like this, especially such well written ones.

I think that's one of the great things about the internet: average, every-day people now have a chance to get their names out their, display their talents and make a reputation for themselves.

And you know what? It's all thanks to people like you! Yeah, you, the person reading this comment. Thanks to people like you, small sites have a chance to voice their opinion and stand alongside the big names.

[BillytheAlien]

No offense but small gaming sites just go along with the crowd to get more hits

Thanks for all the PSV doom and glom articles...oh and that 4/10 Uncharted 3 review was priceless /s

[Baka-akaB]

You know what's funny ? Who do you think launch those trends ? Big sites .

Ign was the first to launch a salvo of the silliest possible articles about the vita . They even went as far as to make up stuff and erroneous facts about its camera (it's not great but not nearly as bad as they claim and their crap easily disproved) . Or how about Cnet even going as far as prophetising the US launch would just be scrapped ...

And that's an example among a few . Ever saw Gspot's video preview of Soul Calibur V ? Not only do they play horribly for guys reviewing games for a living , but they can't also bother to have the facts rights .

Many small sites are as "evil" as their big counterparts , but at least , from the most part , you can sense a passion inherent to their amateurish status , as opposed to posers acting as if they knew better and even cared .

Big sites can't even truly be held accountable , the same writer can have some select memory quasi equal to mental illness , praising one thing they trash a few weeks earlier , without anyone noticing .

While the regular audience from a small site will expect it to be at least consistant in tones

[Anon1974]

Well, thank god for N4G's filtering system, so a handful of users can censor what we read and what sites we get our gaming information from. If those people didn't think for us all by blocking out content, we might actually have to use our brains every once and awhile. Can't have that now, can we?

[kube00]

Uncharted 3 4/10 review? Someone must have a good reasons for that score.

[Kthalas]

I enjoyed reading this short article that you shared. I don't know if you are the author or not, but either way thank you for sharing.

I am a writer for a small site. I enjoying writing from my own perspective and my own experiences. Small sites do sometimes mirror the bigger sites, but not all of us are into all the doom'n gloom or bashings that some places are fond of.

[sirdrake]

If you have to justify them, they don't matter.

[yabhero]

Like gamepad360?